The Escape of Patient 10084 J
by moukidelmar
Summary: The first installment of the Joker Cronicles


**The Escape of Patient 10084 J**

"Doctor Crane, we've brought the patient as you directed…uh, Doctor Crane are you sure you want to interview this patient he's a nut job with a capital "N"."

Doctor Jonathan Crane did not look around at the orderly, but rather continued to look out the window at the steadily darkening sky. His long thin hands clasped behind his pressed and tailored suit.

"Send him in." He said in his crafty voice "After all, there is nothing to fear but fear itself."

A moment later the orderlies brought in a figure in a straight jacket. Stringy dark green hair hung down over the face. A mask with grating over the largely grinning painted smile. Bare feet, pale as death with black toe nails slapped against the stone floor. Crane didn't turn from the window as he heard the chair behind him creek as the figure was lowered into it.

"You may leave us but before you go remove that mask." Crane said. After a moment the door closed behind them.

For a moment there was silence. Crane did not look at his patient at first but then a low rattle of laughter made Crane stiffen.

"What's up Doc?" can the low grating voice behind him followed by another round of laughter. The laughter was low and menacing, chilling and there was no mirth in it.

Crane finally turned. In the darkness the figure could only barely be made out. A pair of dull yellow eyes with tiny pupils and a huge smile all of the figures teeth were visible. As Crane looked the figure tilted its head back a little and snapped its teeth together. Now the horrible scarring on it' face was visible, its cheeks and lips were damaged into a ghastly grin.

"Patient 10084 J I have…" Crane started, but was cut off by a raucous bout of laughter.

"We've known each other a long time Doc…" The figure said his voice higher and more frivolous, but it suddenly turned dark and menacing again, "The name is Joker."

Crane glowered at his patient through his black plastic rim glasses. He did not care for his patient's familiarity or his flippant disregard for authority. Crane liked to keep his thumb on all the inmates of his asylum and this Joker was a wild card and Crane didn't like it.

"As you may be aware, I am currently working on the definitive work on the effect of fear on the human psychosis." Crane said as he sat down behind his desk and adjusted his glasses. "I have already interviewed many of the patients and I have discovered that many of the patients in your wing fear some one called 'the laughing man'. I can only assume they meant you. That is why I have asked you here. What scares you Jack?"

The Joker laughed and made a "tsk tsk" noise.

"You've got the right deck but the wrong card… it's Joker remember. Jack Napier is a name that doesn't mean anything to me anymore." He responded with a bark of laughter. "Although I suppose I should be thanking him really. He made me the clown I am today. HA HA HA HA !!!"

Doctor Crane was taken aback by this outburst, and glared at his patient through his thick framed glasses.

"What do you mean?" he asked coldly.

The Joker chuckled malevolently to himself before responding.

"My story is a simple one doc, but the story of Jack Napier is a sad and twisted one. My part in the story begins with a heist of chemicals to make stronger more potent drugs for the dealers. Jack was in charge of the heist and everything was going swimmingly until…" and hear the jokers voice sunk back into a darker tone, "The batman showed up. He really knows how to spoil a good time and in short order had all of Jack's men rounded up and poor Jack up on a cat walk. Jack did his best to fight back but found it was useless against the Batman and down he went into a vat of chemicals. Battsy just left him there for dead. When Jack first pulled him himself up and out he caught sight of himself in a mirror. He couldn't bare what the acid had to his face, but instead of crying about it he started to laugh. I was born out of that laugh."

Joker leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs and his voice took on a distant tone.

"Jack and I had some good laughs after that and I told him that it would be a stitch to get back at our boss. It was about at that time that Jack started to become a real party pooper. It wasn't long before he didn't want to do anything fun anymore. He was boring…" here the Joker's eyes focused on Crane again and the already gruesome smile stretched a little more with obvious mirth, "…so I killed him."

As he concluded his narrative, a laugh began to build in Joker's throat and now it burst from him. High and shrill it echoed around the office. Joker was racked by wave after wave of laughter and even Crane began to feel afraid. He had seen cases of sociopaths like Joker before, people that found it funny to kill and mutilate, but there was something so haunting and chilling about that laugh. Crane quickly became angry, he was the one that handled fear here, and moving quickly he pulled on the burlap mask that so many inmates had come to fear and grasping the joker by the strait jacket sprayed gas into his face.

Joker coughed and as he looked up Crane could see that his eyes had gone wide. Crying out for help the Joker began to writhe in his chair.

"Oh God! NO!!" Joker screamed.

Crane grinned to himself and leaned forward so he was only a few inches from Joker's face. "What do you see? What does the Joker fear?" He asked in a faked gravely voice.

Suddenly Joker's eyes snapped back into focus and he laughed a sudden bark of triumphant laughter. The straitjacket that had been holding him pulled apart and two white hands with black fingernails shot out of the long sleeves and, grasping Crane by the throat, hurled him backwards onto the desk. Joker yanked the mask from Crane's face and sprayed him with his own gas.

"Laugh Clown… LAUGH!!" Joker shouted in Crane's face before bursting into another bout of hysterical laughter. Crane's screams mixed with the laughter as the poison work through his system.

Several hours later the orderlies outside the cell of Patient 10084J commented on how quiet he had been ever since doctor Crane had finished with him.

"He was tough alright but 'Scarecrow' cracked him in the end." One said to another.

"Yeah," his companion agreed "Still I wish Crane wouldn't wear that mask around the asylum I saw him leaving in it a few hours ago. That thing gives me the creeps."

Outside the wind whipped the rain around and the black night was grim and unforgiving. The rain pattered down from the roof tops and splashed on a strange object, a burlap mask. The sound of laughter echoed around the dark night. A single street light illuminated two shining yellow eyes and reflected on a large toothy smile.

"Good bye Arkam… **Hello Gotham!**" The shadowy figure laughed to itself.


End file.
